I read an article this week that stated the average job search is said to be a whopping 10 months! I guess that extended the last estimate I heard which was around 6-9 months. Seems that now more than ever patience is far more than a virtue—it is a must!

As a job seeker, I encourage you to stay positive while on the hunt to avoid losing belief in your talents as a professional. Here are four great ways to do just that:

Be Confident About Your Presentation!

It’s extremely important that you feel you’re submitting quality resumes each and every time you apply for a job. If you don’t feel your resume is up to par, you need to make adjustments—and quickly. Make sure that each resume is appropriately tailored to each position to prove that you’re right for the job. If you know you’re giving each submission your all, you can feel better about the effort you’re making.

I have to admit, with more than 12 years of hands-on experience interviewing candidates for various positions, I find that the biggest mistakes aren’t made during the face-to-face interview; the ones that have really shocked me have been when I’ve interviewed a candidate over the phone. I find this especially serious for those who are looking to WORK FROM HOME or TELECOMMUTE. So if that’s you, listen up; I’m about to save you from making a mistake that will most definitely cost you the job.

I would assume, if you’re interviewing for a position, it’s because you want the job; I wouldn’t assume that you’re just wasting your time and mine by having a phone interview if you weren’t truly interested in the position or didn’t want to learn more about it. Yet I find that some candidates just don’t take the phone interview very seriously. Let me be very clear here—the phone interview is the hiring manager’s first impression of you (aside from your resume, of course). You don’t want your first impression to be, “I don’t care enough about this position to use proper telephone etiquette.” MAKE IT A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION.

Like your resume, your business card is a snippet of who you are and what you can do for an organization. For example, if you are at a busy networking event, you only have an elevator speech and perhaps a couple extra minutes to make an impression. If you take the time to really create a fine business card, it could be the bridge between small talk and a job.

Apart from the usual features like links to your social networking accounts, here are a few ways to make your business cards memorable and remarkable:

Simple and clean design. Unlike your resume, the use of design and color are largely encouraged in business cards. However, like your resume, don’t go overboard with the flair. A set color scheme and one font is all you need to get your point across. If you have some sort of personal logo or theme you have on every online platform, it would be smart to link these all together.

“What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can't reread a phone call.” - Liz Carpenter

You are out for lunch one day and you get a call from a recruiter who has this amazing job opportunity, but he needs your latest resume in 15 minutes. You are no where near a computer, all you have is your cellphone.

What do you do?

Well, if you are "state of the art", you use your cellphone to grab your resume from Dropbox, make some changes with Quickoffice, and email it back to the recruiter using your smartphone.

I say “most of” because I did not grab the Tweets until about 4 days later and not all of them could be found. I pieced most of them together using a couple of different sources so anything that has been omitted is not intended.

These are in reverse chronological order so scroll down to the bottom of the post and work your way up.

The online world has plenty to offer the executive job seeker. Unfortunately, many executives either aren’t yet on board or don’t completely understand the benefits of boosting their brand over the Internet.

One great way to get started is by guest blogging with Web sites in your field. Haven’t considered this as an option yet? Here are some reasons to get started on this venture right away!

You Can Widen Your Audience

If you have your own industry blog, guest blogging for another Web site in the same industry gives you the opportunity to draw a different audience to your Web site. In most cases, the Web site will give its guest blogger a byline and allow them a short paragraph describing their expertise in the field, credentials, etc.

They will also let the blogger list the Web site where their blog can be found. Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of this free advertising?

About & Connect

Welcome to the Minnesota Headhunter Blog. My name is Paul DeBettignies (pronounced De-Bett-ingz).

I started writing in 2005 to share thoughts and ideas I had as an IT recruiter.

Since then I expanded this site to include MN IT and recruiter jobs, links to Minnesota business news and promote the local tech community.

I am the Principal of Minnesota Headhunter, LLC a Minneapolis IT search firm and a frequent local and national speaker and article contributor on recruiter, HR, career, networking and social media topics.